1. Field of the Invention.
The present invention relates to a backplane that has several socket connectors arranged in parallel, side by side on a side of the backplane that faces the module. The pins of these socket connectors form a pin field on a side that faces away from the module. At least one bus comprising at least one bus line interconnects the contact pins.
2. Description of Related Art.
Backplanes are commercially available and are known, for instance, as VME bus boards. The VME bus is a standardized bus which is responsible for fast data traffic between the most important components of a bus system. The bus structure forms the connecting bars between the building blocks and modules of a micro or minicomputer system. The bus structures also varies according to the system components used and the desired performance. The structure influences the performance of the overall system because the entire data exchange takes place via such bus systems. The data exchange takes place, for instance, in a 8-, 16- or 32-bit format. For example, 8, 16 or 32 bus line systems interconnect the individual modules of a bus system. A fault caused by a short circuit of an output driver with the supply voltage of a bus participant can block the entire bus system. A diagnostic routine can localize the defective bus participant for many types of faults. However, some types of faults can be determined only by sequentially separating all bus participants from the bus until the defective participant is found and the trouble corrected. The entire function of the participant concerned is put out of operation when the individual bus participants are pulled out of their plug-in locations in a module carrier. This fault isolation process leads to down time.